Father, forgive me. It has been 24 years since my last confession*. These are my sins:

I created content solely for the purpose of creating content;

I distributed useless content; and

I failed to offer value to my readers.

Childhood Excuses: Sharing my professional blunder throws me back to my youth, when I knelt in the confessional, trying to remain anonymous before Father Ciaola, though I was fairly certain he could see through the dark linen cloth.

To ensure a light penance, I relied on the same three sins every kid my age did:I lied, I fought with my brothers and sisters, and I disobeyed my parents. (If you weren’t raised Catholic, just ask someone who was.) Anyway, like I said, I knew I would get off with a light penance if I admitted to these three rote, somewhat-acceptable sins.

A Teenage Error in Judgment: One time – one time, mind you – I told Father Ciaola the truth. What I had done was a bad thing for a 14-year-old girl (I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t THAT bad). Anyway, I confessed it, thinking my honesty would create a sense of mercy in Father Ciaola. It didn’t.

He told me what I already knew, “You shouldn’t do that!” Then he gave me a harsh penance and sent me on my way.

The Shameful Blunder a Professional Content Writer: I didn’t have to confer with Father Ciaola, or anyone for that matter, to know that I had gone astray. All I had to do was look at what I’d written and say, “I shouldn’t have done that!”

Every minute of every day, gobs of content are tossed into a virtual Mariana Trench. Some content sinks immediately, never to be read or retrieved. A smaller percentage of content is read and absorbed. This content is buoyant; it remains relevant and worth sharing.

Shark Tank-investor Mark Cuban said in an interview with Business Insider that every entrepreneur should read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. What’s interesting about this piece of advice is that Rand penned The Fountainhead in 1943. The book started off with slow sales, but eventually it reached 6.5 million print copies sold. Instead of sinking into oblivion, the content remains buoyant; it is relevant and worth sharing, even today.

Buoyant content remains relevant, visible, and worth sharing.

Your content is unlikely to reach an audience 6.5 million, and that’s to be expected, and probably even preferred. Few businesses are prepared or capable of serving a million-person audience.

It’s more likely that you are trying to reach a community, a list of top-ten clients, a selection of mid-sized companies, or some other targeted market. The only thing that matters is that YOUR content is relevant to YOUR target market.

Buoyant content has greater lead potential.

A client who received 117 initial LinkedIn views within one week of sharing content had 451 LinkedIn views six weeks later. The numbers aren’t high, but the lesson is valid. This client experienced a 400% increase in audience touch with a single, brief blog.

FLUID CONTENT remains visible and worthwhile.

The Fountainhead was initially available in print only (no surprise in 1943). Its audience continued to grow, however, for two reasons:

The Fountainhead has intrinsic value that makes people want to share it. There’s no way that a book authored in 1943 would continue to grow a modern audience if it weren’t relevant. Something had to be significant enough about the work to make a splash on the Internet, some 75 years after it was written. It’s buoyancy results from its relevance and its appeal to its target market.

The content’s visibility results from the fact that Rand’s story became fluid; it was shared across many channels: magazine interviews, professional testimonials, and Internet searches.

Fluid content is visible in many places, so it can be retrieved and recirculated by many people, long after it was first penned. This is residual value.

Content can’t pick up the same traction in one channel as it can in several. This is a lesson for every business dabbling in content creation. Don’t get stuck in one mode of communication; explore opportunities to share your message in print and in multiple digital channels.

When your content begins to slip into oblivion, it takes only one, two, or more people to revive it, to recirculate it, and to bring its knowledge back into view for a completely new audience.

You might not be Ayn Rand, and your content will likely never reach an audience of 6.5 million. What you might achieve is a 5%, 15%, or 25% increase in audience touch and lead potential, and that’s a worthy investment.

Five weeks ago, I knew nothing about Bitcoin and Block Chain. Four weeks later, an international firm published my article on the investment potential of Bitcoin and Block Chain.

Why would a company hire a writer who knows little to nothing about the topic they want to communicate? That’s a fair and logical question.

The answer, at first glance, might not seem as logical, but here it is:

Content writing has little to do with industry expertise.

Does that scare you? If you are going to pay someone to convey your coveted expertise to customers, why hire someone who possesses none of that expertise? Three reasons, actually.

Three reasons why you should hire a content writer to convey your message:

Internal technical people have little time to write. What company wants to pay their brightest technical minds to write, when they could be developing new products, driving operational efficiencies, or improving the company’s bottom line? Expecting your engineers or business development people to write is a poor use of your resources.

Technical people aren’t always the most capable writers. I’ve been told this dozens of times by the technical experts themselves or by their managers. Writing is a skill, and unbeknownst to many people, it is a time-consuming and somewhat painful process. Not everyone is going to be a strong writer, and that includes the most intelligent and forward-thinking members of your team. And that’s okay. It’s no different than the fact that only one person on a team is going to be the best goalie, the best three-point shooter, the best salesperson, or the best motivator.

There is no magic to content writing. Writers rely heavily on independent research and expert interviews. (For example, I read more than 40 articles and interviewed three people before writing my own Bitcoin piece.)

Writing is a craftthat blends technical expertise with the flow of appealing, persuasive copy. Pure technical content belongs in the realm of user manuals and research papers. Marketing content has another purpose, and that is to call a targeted audience to action. Whether you’re positioning yourself as an industry expert, working to stay ahead of the competition, or pushing a particular product or service, a content writer is best suited to speak directly to your target audience.

A writer thinks like a customer. If I don’t understand what you have to offer, it’s likely that your customers won’t either. Your expertise is your selling point, but it’s important to share that expertise without losing the interest of your audience. A content writer gathers, absorbs, and distills information to fit the needs of your target audience through subtly-persuasive content.

Investing in an expert writer is a good call when you’re ready to get results by increasing awareness, positioning yourself as an industry expert, or calling your audience to action. Just be sure to find a writer who can understand your business and translate your message in a way that is understandable and impactful to your audience.